


Precious Things

by Lexalicious70



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Brief mentions of bleeding, Episode Remix, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-27
Updated: 2018-09-27
Packaged: 2019-07-18 02:34:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16108973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lexalicious70/pseuds/Lexalicious70
Summary: AU remix of “The Strangled Heart:” After an unexpected attack, Quentin must find Eliot’s most precious possession before the Virgo Blade claims Eliot’s life.





	Precious Things

**Author's Note:**

> This has been rolling around in my head for some time, but it wasn’t until two nights ago that I finally realized what Eliot’s most precious possession would be. Comments and kudos are magic, and as always, thanks for reading!

Precious Things

By Lexalicious70

 

“I seem to have gotten turned around. Do you know the way back to the cottage from here?”

 

Quentin and Eliot turned. Mike was walking into the clearing, smiling, one hand tucked behind his back. Eliot frowned at the odd posture, but then Quentin was walking toward him, helpful as always, pointing over Mike’s shoulder.

 

“Sure, it’s right back that—”

 

Mike’s hidden hand snaked around and into the air as Quentin spoke, and Eliot’s eyes widened as he saw the glint of a large dagger in his lover’s hand. Quentin saw the movement as well and tucked his body inward, away from the blade, as Eliot took three striding steps forward, his long legs eating up the distance between them, and gave Mike a rough telekinetic shove that sent him flying backward. Eliot raised his hands to cast, but Mike recovered much quicker than should have been possible and lunged for Quentin again. Eliot leaped forward and tackled Mike to the ground, wrapping his long arms and legs around him and pummeling his shoulders hard, keeping his hands trapped between them. They rolled over and over across the leaf-strewn clearing, and Quentin ran toward them.

 

“Eliot!”

 

“Run!” Eliot managed to shout at Quentin, and then Mike’s knee jerked up sharply, catching Eliot in the stomach. He gasped, letting Mike go as he lost half his air, and then a sizzling arrow of pain punched itself deep into his abdomen, just below his belly button, followed by a hot rush of his own blood as Mike yanked the dagger’s blade out again. He put a hand to it, feeling it seep through the orchid shirt he was wearing. Mike raised the blade as Eliot fell onto his back but then he was flying backwards, propelled by the battle magic Quentin had fired off. He struck a tree, the blade flying from his hand, and crumpled at the trunk, unmoving. Quentin fell to his hands and knees next to Eliot a moment later, and Eliot looked up at him.

 

“I told you to run!” he said, finding it hard to catch his breath.

 

“But it’s Mike, why would he . . .” His dark eyes widened as he saw the blood spreading along the fabric of Eliot’s shirt and vest. Eliot followed his gaze.

 

“That’s going to stain.” He said softly, and Quentin bit his lower lip.

 

“Oh shit . . .” He said as he pulled off his own sweater before unbuttoning Eliot’s vest and pulling his shirttail from his trousers. Under any other circumstance, Eliot would have been excited about Quentin undressing him, but the tugging caused bright flares of pain that extended upward into his abdomen and down into his lower belly. He gasped, and Quentin winced.

 

“I’m sorry, El!” He pressed his sweater to the wound, which was a vertical slit in his flesh about two inches long. It spat out blood with every beat of Eliot’s heart and Quentin looked around the clearing.

 

“Help! Someone please, help us!” He watched the shirt turn red. “Oh God . . . Eliot? El? Hey!” Quentin patted his cheek with his free hand. “Don’t close your eyes, okay? Just—just stay here with me, don’t—” He rested his hand on Eliot’s cheek as Eliot stared up at him. Penny, Margo, and Alice ran into the clearing a moment later, and they stood over Eliot, their heads looking like untethered balloons to him. Snatches of conversation reached him as he wavered in and out of a haze ringed with a halo of pain.

 

“Mike, but—”

 

“Get to the infirmary—”

 

“—move him? All the blood . . .”

 

Eliot’s consciousness tuned out slowly, like a song being played inside a car that was rapidly pulling away from the curb. He was vaguely aware that he was being lifted, and Quentin’s face loomed over him one more time, his lips forming the same words over and over.

 

_Hold on. Hold on_.

 

Darkness came for him, and it stayed for a bit.

 

 

 

“It’s a very strange wound. I’ve never seen anything like it, really.”

 

Quentin stood listening to the infirmary assistant talking to Professor Sunderland and Dean Fogg. Two other healing students fussed around down by the wound as Eliot lay half-conscious. He’d passed out on the way there and was only now coming back around, flinching and gasping as they tended the wound. They’d crowded Quentin away from the bed and now he stood nearly in the corner, his hands stuffed up under his arms.

 

“We found this in Mike’s hand.” Penny handed the blade over to Sunderland. She held it up to the light, angling the blade upward, and Quentin stepped forward.

 

“Wait. I’ve seen that before. I know I have!” He flipped open his Sharo bag and pulled out a copy of _The World in the Walls_ , the first book in the _Fillory and Further_ series, and flipped quickly through the pages before finding an illustration. “Look!” He held up the drawing of the dagger for everyone to see. “It’s called the Virgo blade. Jane was attacked with it and it caused all these roots and vines to grow under her skin, where they would eventually reach her heart, so, uhm—to heal her, they had to offer up her greatest treasure—the doll her mom had given her.”

 

“So, we make a doll of Eliot, kind of like a voodoo deal, and offer it up?” Margo asked, glancing over her shoulder as Eliot made a low, weak sound of pain. Quentin shook his head.

 

“No, I don’t think that would work, because, uh—look here—” He pointed at a passage on the page, below the drawing of the blade. “It says here that it wasn’t so much the doll looking like her that caused the spell to accept it but because her mother had given it to her in happier times. It was the one thing important enough to carry with her into Fillory.” Quentin glanced over at Eliot. “Which means we need to find Eliot’s most precious possession before the vines strangle the life out of him. Margo . . .” He snapped the book shut. “You must know what it is! You’re Eliot’s best friend, what would he say was his most important possession?”

 

Margo put her hands on her hips.

 

“This isn’t _The Newlywed Game_ , Quentin!”

 

“But you have to know!”

 

“Eliot is my best friend, yes. But you know what he’s not? Forthcoming about his emotions, his family, or his past! I know you’re imagining us having all these heartfelt conversations at three in the morning, but honestly? The person who Eliot was before Brakebills is buried deep.”

 

“Shit.” Quentin crammed the book bag into his bag and swung around to the bed again. He pushed his way between a few of the healers, both of which glared at him. Quentin ignored them and reached down to pat Eliot’s cheek.

 

“Eliot? Hey! El! It’s Quentin, look at me!”

“Uhnnh?” Eliot blinked up at Quentin, who noticed that his corneas were starting to turn yellowish-grey. His stomach gave an unpleasant lurch but he cupped Eliot’s face with both hands. “Eliot! Listen, you’ve been stabbed with an enchanted blade, and the only thing that can stop its curse is your most precious possession. What is it?”

 

“My . . . ?” Eliot managed to say before his long frame shuddered. One of the healers pointed.

 

“Professor, look, it’s spreading more rapidly now.”

 

Professor Sunderland pulled down the sheet that covered Eliot from his mid-chest to his groin and gave a gasp of surprise mixed with disgust. The roots and vines were tunneling under Eliot’s skin and breaking through here and there. Quentin glanced down and then away, his stomach giving a more serious clench.

 

“El, come on! Talk to me! What’s your most important possession?”

 

Eliot stared up at him a moment more before his eyes went blank and he lost consciousness again. Quentin turned away, shoving his hands into his hair.

 

“Shit!” He snapped softly, and Margo put a hand on his arm.

 

“We need to get back to the cottage, go through El’s things. He won’t like it, but that’s tough titty. Come on.” She tugged on Quentin’s arm until he followed, although he gave Eliot one more glance as they left the room and out a side door that would take them across the Sea and back toward the cottage. Quentin had to jog to keep up with Margo despite the fact he was nearly four inches taller.

 

“How are we going to find his most important possession if we don’t know what’s important to him?” He puffed. Margo kept striding along, her expression set.

 

“We’ll have to fake it.”

 

“We can’t just fake it! If we’re wrong then Eliot’s dead! I don’t know if the Virgo blade they found on Mike is the exact one from Fillory, but if it is, then we don’t have a lot of time!”

 

They reached the cottage and Margo slammed the front door open. The common area was mostly empty and Margo’s heels rang on the steps as she climbed them without pausing. Quentin followed, unslinging his shoulder bag as they reached Eliot’s room. Margo undid Eliot’s wards and pushed the door open.

 

“If El does survive, he’s gonna be so pissed about this,” she sighed as she turned on the lights.

 

Quentin set his messenger bag down as he glanced around the room. He’d been in it many times, from helping Eliot to bed if he’d drank too much at a party or just laying on the floor or bed while he and Margo shared their pot and edibles and wine with him. While the room didn’t have the spartan feel of Penny’s or the strong female vibe of Alice’s, it was drenched with Eliot’s scent and aesthetic. It felt haunted. A chill chased up Quentin’s spine like someone had dragged an ice chip along his bare skin. Margo began opening dresser drawers and pawing through them.

 

“Check the closet,” She said as she pulled out scarves, socks, silk boxers, and folded pocket squares. Quentin went to the closet and tugged the doors open. The illusion made Quentin blink—like Snoopy’s doghouse and the TARDIS, the space was much bigger inside than out. He groped for a light switch, found one, and illuminated four racks of clothing, two shoe racks, (both full,) A few hat boxes, and storage containers stacked up at both side of the space.

 

“Do you think it might be an article of clothing?” He called out to Margo, who was now emptying another drawer. “You know, like his favorite pair of shoes?”  


“The Prada slip-on is a classic, but I doubt that’s going to be a cure!”

 

“So it probably wouldn’t be a shoe . . .” Quentin turned in a slow circle. “Choose wisely.” He spied a metallic box with a steel clip closure and picked it up. Something rolled around inside and he went to the closet door. “Margo, what’s in here?” He asked, and Margo paused in her own rooting around to glance over her shoulder. She pressed her lips together and rolled her eyes.

 

“That’s Eliot’s vibrator collection!”

 

“Oh God, uhm—” Quentin tucked the box back where he’d found it and shoved aside rows of silk, wool, and cotton. Most of them smelled like the cologne Eliot favored. It smelled like cedar after a rainstorm, paired with a sandalwood undertone. Quentin fought the urge to bury his face in Eliot’s cranberry blazer and glanced up. There were three different shelf levels, and the highest was at least five feet over Quentin’s head. He murmured a spell and pointed his fingers downward as he spread them wide. It allowed him to levitate and float until he was about an inch above eye level with the highest shelf. There wasn’t much to see: a few errant cobwebs, a leather cabbie cap that Eliot must have retired, a shoebox full of odds and ends that didn’t give Quentin many clues as to why they’d been saved. He rolled around a large blue-green marble, shuffled through a deck of cards that weren’t complete, and examined a ring that was much too small for Eliot’s fingers. It contained a simple sunburst gem, but the band was cracked. Quentin replaced it before fitting the lid back on the box and returning it to the shelf. Margo poked her head in and glanced up.

 

“Any luck?”

 

“There’s nothing here! Just clothes and accessories.” Quentin turned himself and ran his hands along the shelving, then gasped as something thin sliced across the top of his thumb like a razor. He yelped in surprise, pulled his hand back, then peered into the corner where two wooden joists met to create the shelf. Quentin reached in again and felt around the joists until he found a thin, tan mailing envelope, the kind without the protective bubbled surface. It was tucked between the joist and the wall, and Quentin had cut his thumb on the envelope’s lip. He tugged it out and floated back down to the floor, where Margo crowded him.

 

“What’s in it?” She demanded. Quentin shrugged—there was no writing on the envelope, no label, no stamps. He undid the metal clasp and opened one end. Something thin and light fell into his hands, and he blinked. Margo’s delicate brow furrowed but then a knowing smile curved across her lips.

 

“That’s it.”

 

“But why? He can’t possibly—”

 

“It makes sense in ways I don’t have time to tell you about.” She slid the object back into the envelope. “Come on.”

 

******

 

“You’re certain that’s it?” Professor Sunderland asked as the healers brought over a warded burning pot on a small wheeled cart. Eliot was no longer responsive, and the roots had grown along his arms, legs, and chest. His eyes were those of a corpse. Quentin glanced at Margo, who opened the tan envelope.

 

“It’s the horse we bet on,” she sighed, sliding out the object inside, which she handed to Sunderland. The professor frowned.

 

“I don’t understand.”

 

“Can you puzzle it out later, before Eliot turns into Audrey II?” Margo asked, shifting her weight nervously, and the older woman nodded. She lit the burning pot, causing the flames to leap up, and tossed the square card into the fire. Quentin stood, unmoving, watching the letters there burn. Letters that spelled out his name on a stark white background. Quentin closed his eyes as he remembered the way Eliot had said his name for the first time when he’d read it off that card, the one that was burning away to cinders now.

 

_Quentin Coldwater??_

 

“I don’t believe it.” Sunderland muttered, and Quentin opened his eyes and swung around to look at her. She was watching the vines that had made their way through the skin on Eliot’s chest. As the card burned, they jerked, withered, and turned to dust. Margo smiled through her tears, fierce and triumphant.

 

You and your first-year boys,” she murmured.

 

It took nearly 24 hours for the last of the vines to curl up and die inside Eliot, leaving his skin unblemished, and Quentin sat with him whenever he could. He studied Eliot’s profile as he slept and healed, as he’d never truly dared to look Eliot in the eye when they spoke. There was something electric in the tall magician’s eyes when they were together, and Quentin had always been afraid that making eye contact would ignite it into something he wouldn’t be able to undo.

 

As the sun went down on that second day, Eliot stirred and made a low questioning sound in his throat. Quentin glanced up from his copy of _The World in the Walls_ and then set the book aside to touch Eliot’s hand.

 

“El? Hey . . . can you hear me? Eliot, it’s Quentin. Eliot!”

 

Eliot’s eyelids twitched and then lifted, revealing confused, sleepy amber eyes that were blessedly clear of that corpselike color. Quentin smiled, his own heart lifting.

 

“Q?” Eliot questioned, and Quentin patted his hand.

 

“Yeah, hey! How are you feeling?”

 

“Mmmh . . .” Eliot struggled to sit up and Quentin leaned forward to raise the bed for him. “A little dizzy . . . what am I doing here? What . . .” His eyes widened all at once. “Mike.” He looked down at himself, but all that was left of the wound was hidden by a square of gauze to keep it clean. “We were in the clearing and he tried to stab you.”

 

“And you jumped in the way and took him down. He stabbed you instead, but it wasn’t with an ordinary knife.” He showed Eliot the book and gave him a brief explanation of the blade. Eliot stared at him.

 

“My most valued possession. And . . . since I’m clearly cured, you and Margo must have found it.”

 

“We did.” Quentin cleared his throat. “I just—that is we—didn’t really understand. I never imagined you’d kept that stupid card. What made it so special, El?”

 

“I remember when Henry assigned me the job of fetching you up to the house to take your test. I read your name off that card about two dozen times before you came through the hedge. I couldn’t imagine what a boy named Quentin Coldwater would look like. But then you came stumbling up to me, your mouth open, sweating buckets in that awful coat you had on . . .” Eliot smiled as Quentin filled a glass with water from the bedside table and handed it to him. “Thank you. And I knew then that I would be devastated if you failed your test. So I suppose I kept the card as a good luck charm—and so I wouldn’t forget your name when I left Brakebills and came to find you if you didn’t get in.”

 

“But you didn’t even know me!”

 

“No . . . I guess I didn’t. But I wanted to, Quentin. And if you understood how rare that is for me, that card being my most important possession makes sense. Maybe Margo knew that when she saw it, too.” Eliot put his other hand over Quentin’s and caught his gaze. Quentin swallowed hard as he felt that spark ignite, but it bloomed warm and hopeful in his chest instead of triggering the panic attack he’d feared.

 

“Do, uhm . . . do you still want to know me?” He asked after a moment, and Eliot squeezed his hand.

 

“I’ve been trying to get you to make eye contact with me for two months. If getting stabbed with an enchanted blade and ruining my favorite orchid shirt is the cost, then I’d say it was well worth the effort. Thank you, Q. You saved my life.”

 

“And you saved mine.” Quentin moved from the chair to the edge of the bed. Eliot watched, giving him a guarded but hopeful smile that was so different from the cynical smirk he usually offered people.

 

“I suppose that makes us even for now,” he allowed. Quentin pulled his feet up under him until he sat hip to hip with Eliot, who slipped an arm around his shoulders. Quentin blushed but didn’t pull away, and Eliot leaned against him.

 

“Quentin Coldwater,” he said, his tone and inflection making the letters sound like music.

 

“I’m sorry we had to burn the card, El.”

 

“That’s all right.” He leaned against Quentin and focused on his heartbeat: strong, sure, young.

 

“I’ve traded up, anyway.”

 

_Fin_

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
